The answer is obviously no. It's never wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon. In fact, that's where I always go to pick up girls. One of the joys of owning a dungeon is to keep girls in it. Wait, you mean those dungeons in the multi-player video games? Oh... yeah, of course, I meant that. I was just kidding about that "owning a dungeon" thing. I don't own it. I just rent.
As far as this anime goes, the title comes across as being yet another long-ass title that actually has little resemblance to the plot. It's a "broad strokes" title meant to entice based solely on the weirdness of the title itself. Yes, there is a guy that initially meets the girl of his dreams in a dungeon, but this isn't a romance type of anime and it isn't perverted, either. If anything, it's more of a light-hearted Sword Art Online without the look at the lives of the people actually playing the game. So while this anime feels like it takes place within a game there's no guarantee it actually does because we are never told or shown otherwise. That's a neat approach.
And yeah, I'm a sucker for long-ass titles, too. I don't understand why myself.
And yeah, I'm a sucker for long-ass titles, too. I don't understand why myself.
The name itself originates with the light novel series the anime is based upon, though. So naturally the title is for people that have the patience to read.
The story follows around Bell Cranel, an aspiring adventurer that wants to journey deep into the dungeon and win glory and all that good stuff. Unfortunately, he starts off on the wrong foot and almost gets killed by minotaur. If it wasn't for the glorious Aiz Wallenstein rescuing him he would have been S.O.L.
Of course, Aiz Wallenstein is a high level adventurer, but more importantly she is a stoic bundle of hotness from a well-known family. Basically, she's out of Bell's league and she's seen him completely embarrass himself so his work is cut out for him.
Bell himself is from a family ran by the more small-time god Hestia (often nicknamed "the Bestia" by fans because of her rather present cleavage and her personality). And yes, I consider Hestia to be the Bestia as well. (As I understand it, she's also been subject to a ton of fan-made... ahem, "hentai manga." So there's always that is you need your Bestia fix. Just don't say where you got that info from and we'll be good.)
Dungeon didn't really break the mold for this genre, but it's definitely an excellent advertisement for the light novels. The animation looked crisp (if not spectacular) and the story was self-aware enough to not take itself too seriously. There were some excellent battle scenes later on, but they weren't as over the top or purposely drawn out as many shounen anime. Not that intense shounen battles that last fifty episodes are entirely bad, but there's a time and place for that and it's not here.
There's certainly room for a sequel series as there were a bit of sub-plots left untied. I imagine that is because of where the light novels left off while the anime was being made. That and the creators of the anime are waiting to see how well the blu-rays do before going all in on a second season. This happens a lot with anime these days and it gets annoying at times when Naruto Shippuden gets carte blanche despite releasing nothing but filler material for months at a time after that manga is already over. There's some hypocrisy there.
But if there isn't one then I believe I would be satisfied enough for this to be the end although there would be some reservations. I hate loose ends.
Would I buy this on blu-ray? Sure. I really enjoyed this anime. I just don't think it will make my top ten list for the year, though. We'll see, but I've seen quite a few good ones so far this year.
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